Archive for August 20th, 2008
Do You Want Widgets on Your TV?
Intel and Yahoo announced today they are teaming up to try and make television interactive. Yahoo will manage a widget library for Intel’s OEM partners that will include social, informational and personalized add-ons for TV. Columnist Michael Wolf has the story on NewTeeVee. The announcement is a bit like deja vu, since Yahoo and Intel for the last two years have offered a neat little integration for keeping track of your fantasy football league and watching the game on your big screen. B...
FCC Issues Formal Order on Comcast P2P Throttling
Today, the Federal Communications Commission issued its formal order censuring Comcast for throttling P2P traffic as part of its network management practices, requiring the ISP to report, within 30 days, details on how it plans to manage its network. GigaOM has followed the story for the past 10 months, and an end is finally in sight. Nothing in the order is terribly new for anyone who paid attention to the Aug. 1 hearing on the topic, but you can bet lawyers from ISPs and public interest group...
HillCrest Labs: Nintendo’s Wii Infringing Our Patents
Hillcrest Labs, a Rockville, Mnd.-based startup, says it has filed a complaint for patent infringement with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) in Washington, D.C., and a separate patent infringement suit in the U.S. District Court in Maryland, against Nintendo, related to the Wii video game system. Hillcrest’s patents at issue are U.S. Patent Nos. 7,158,118, 7,262,760, and 7,414,611, which relate to a hand-held 3-D pointing device, and U.S. Patent No. 7,139,983, which relates...
Hulu Getting Ready To Go International
Ever since Hulu, the online-video joint venture backed by NBC, News Corp. and $100 million in private equity launched in March 2008, the service has been slowly winning over critics, including yours truly. And if that isn’t enough -– the company is rising to the top in the web video rankings. According to Nielsen data, Hulu is now the No. 8 most popular video web site, it’s and rising fast. It was ranked No. 10 in June 2008 and was up two spots at the end of July 2008. More important...
Who Still Cares About VoIP? I Do!
Last month, I wrote a post wondering if VoIP is really happening, and it elicited some thoughtful dialog. August has been a busy month for VoIP, and I wanted to revisit things on a more positive note. There are definitely signs of life out there that show the VoIP glass being half full. Ill start first with Infonetics Research, as their latest research sets the stage at a high level. Their report show that the global VoIP business is up sharply, with 2007 data being the most current period. R...
Catching Up: Mobivox - Launching Voice-Enabled Conversations.
About three weeks ago I had the opportunity to interview Mobivox’s new CEO Peter Diedrich, a telecom industry veteran who brings both telecom executive and VC-funded startup experience to the table. Mobivox has traditionally provided a low cost worldwide calling service, including free calls to Skype contacts. Key features included (i) no client downloads, (ii) launch a voice call from any telephone handset and (iii) access via over 340 points-of-presence in 40 countries. However, unpublic...
Language Skypenomics: Myngle is a market for students and teachers
Myngle picked up €800k in first round funding last week. Language teachers offer their services through the site, students shop for teachers, they pay through Myngle, study through Skype. Co-founders include alumni of eBay, Berlitz, Razorfish and Proctor & Gamble. Teachers set market prices, publish hours when they are available (Myngle takes care of time zone arithmetic). Students shop and sign up for lessons. Myngle augments instruction. Teachers can use a whiteboard during a class....
Crossing over Parallel Lines
(photo taken on Aug 8, 2008 with a Nikon D300 and a 28-200mm zoom) ...
On American Airlines, Finally In-flight Mobile Broadband
Someone compared flying these to a stint in the prison. I am sure for many it has been as mind-jarring an experience as it has been for me. And that is why you need broadband in the sky - so you can put your noise-cancelling headphones and answer emails. Sometimes that is the “zen” you need in order to not focus on the declining quality of the flying experience. Good news is that starting today, American Airlines will launch Aircell’s inflight mobile broadband service, Gogo. O...
CloudStatus Keeps an Eye on The Clouds
The summer of 2008 has been the best of times and worst of times for cloud computing. Many companies –big and small - decided to throw in their lot with cloud computing, betting that it is the future of technology infrastructure. At the same time, cloud computing took its lumps as some of the early large-scale cloud applications hit the skids. Apple’s MobileMe went on a blink for many while the GMail blackout that left millions angry and frustrated. Even Amazon’s seemingly fool pr...
STMicro and Ericsson Pin Hopes on the Platform
Looking at the proposed joint venture between European wireless chipmaker STMicroelectronics and equipment maker Ericsson this morning, all you need to know is that making wireless chips is no longer enough. The emphasis is shifting beyond the individual radios on a chip, to a platform that contain as much of the silicon-related radios as a phone or laptop needs, packaged neatly for consumption in a handset or on a 3G modem. It’s the difference between buying the individual tomatoes, onio...
Personal Technology at the Beijing Olympics
Reports are surfacing that Skype has been playing a significant role for many of the Olympic athletes. Canadians have the option of watching Olympic activities during 18 hours of the day (from 6:00 p.m. to noon the following day - EDT or GMT-4) over two major networks: CBC and TSN. Canada had a dearth of medal action for the first week - causing a national angst in the mainstream Canadian media. Our two man rowing team came through with a first medal last Saturday morning and the medals have flo...
How Facebook and I Kissed and Made Up
A few months ago, Facebook and I called it quits after a lengthy but volatile relationship. After being in lust to the point where I visited Facebook several times a day, the social network service started to lose its appeal. The hype, the invitations to groups that have little purpose, the onslaught of productivity-killing applications, friend requests from total strangers, and the controversy over Beacon all started to be too much. So, we split up. It was over. There was no going back. It was ...
A New Microsoft License Lets Hosters Change Their Stripes
Cloud computing is based on a pay-as-you-go, self-provisioning utility model. Users are billed by the hour. On the other hand, software vendors are accustomed to shrinkwrap licenses, making it hard for cloud users to get the software they want on an on-demand basis. But as CNET reports, Microsoft has relaxed licensing for virtual machines licensing, opening the door for hosting providers to reinvent themselves as true clouds. Until now, Microsoft’s software was tied to a physical server. ...
Returning to Israel next week…
Next week while I am in Israel, I will be attending a number of events including: August 27th - Breakfast with Jeff Pulver (and friends) in Tel Aviv. August 28th - The Tel Aviv-Yafo Entrepreneur Meetup Group - Im the guest speaker. Details: http://entrepreneur.meetup.com/1174/. August 31st - amuta2.0 - Social Media for Not-for-Profits (in Jerusalem). Im speaking at this event and Im hosting a social media breakfast. For details, please see: http://amuta20.com/events/. When Im not at the...
Bear With Us - It’s Moving Time
For the next few days you will only see new posts for Skype Journal. Let’s just say that we found it necessary to move off of Yahoo’s hosting service and are setting up (with an update to Movable Type 4.2) at a new hosting service recommended to us by some who already use this service. Fortunately we do have access to all our content, including comments, and are having that reformatted and reorganized for incorporating into the new location. (Our goal is such that the only content no...
Apple’s Battery Problems — Now with iPods!
Remember not all that long ago when just about every computer notebook manufacturer was having problems with batteries — like catching on fire! Now we have battery problems with cell phones! Apple is blaming a problem its problem with overheating iPods in Japan on faulty batteries. In response to reports that Japan is investigating incidents of iPod nanos getting hot enough to scorch paper placed nearby, Apple acknowledged that “in very rare cases” first-gener...
Mobilize LaunchPad Deadline is August 20
We have received quite a few submissions for the Startup LaunchPad at our Mobilize 08 conference that is scheduled to be held on September 18, 2008 in San Francisco. I wanted to remind everyone that the deadline for applications ends tomorrow, August 20. We will announce a short list of companies on Monday, August 25. As a reminder, I want to stress the fact that you don’t need to be a venture-backed company. If you are a single developer with a great app and are ready to show off, you ar...
AC/DC & Wal-Mart? Go Figure …
Who would have figured that Wal-Mart would have become the exclusive retailer for classic rock bands coming back to life? In the latest news in this area, the king of retailers revealed that the new AC/DC album, Black Ice, will be sold exclusively in Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores starting in late October. The deal is part of a wider strategy for the world’s biggest retailer to get exclusive deals to sell CDs. It is the latest album to be sold under such an arrangement, as Wal-Mart g...
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Muxtape: The Day the Music Died (Again)
The music has stopped at Muxtape.com, the free, online music site that allows users to create a playlist or mixtape of up to 12 songs and share the list with friends. It was temporarily shutdown as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) flexed its copyright protecting musclea. The Manhattan-based startup has informed users that it “will be unavailable for a brief period while we sort out a problem with the RIAA.” The RIAA has been cracking down on illegal shari...
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News, opinions and announcements about fast changing communication tools and technologies, from various blogs and ezine.